Have Yad, Will Travel

I was taught to lein (read publicly from the torah) by one of the finest baalei keriah (Torah readers) I have ever heard, and the ability has served me very well, in many ways, over the years since.

When I was in RIETS, I spent a year as baal keriah for Young Israel of Massapequa, a small shul on Long Island. I lived in the shul (it was a converted home) every other Shabbat, leined, taught a class on Shabbat afternoons, and had a great time. It was a warm community of great people (and it didn't hurt that they paid well).

Move ahead a few years and I was ready to look for a shul. My soon-to-be Rebbetzin was in school in Boston, so we needed a shul in the general vicinity – and we found, through a family friend, Congregation Ohawe Sholam (yes, that's the way it's spelled), the Young Israel of Pawtucket, Rhode Island. They needed a rabbi as well as a baal keriah, and I fit the bill. It was a great match; what a fantastic community. I also learned “the signs” there – a code of hand-gestures a gabbai could use to lead a baal keriah with decent peripheral vision. I wasn't a believer in the signs until the day I had to take over at the second aliyah of Vayyakhel-Pekudei, without preparation, and was able to complete it on the strength of those signs.

Fast-forward four years and we moved to Allentown, where, again, the shul needed both rabbi and baal keriah. I nearly didn't get the job – the other candidate was more charismatic, as I recall – but my leining definitely helped. I taught a series of gabbaim those signs, just to be on the safe side. The result was a wonderful eight years.

Jump ahead eight-plus years, to this morning. I'm in Toronto for a few days of meetings, and nervously mulling the fact that the community is so large that people can get by without being actively involved in leading its institutions. Certainly, people can always help other people, and can find roles to play when they wish, and Toronto is known for its activism, but if people aren't sought out, how many just fall through the communal cracks, going through life without becoming involved in making thing happen? This bothers me; I don't feel comfortable in that kind of environment. After the past 12 years, I feel at home in a community of people who are taking their time to make things happen, whether school or shul, eruv or Federation or mikveh or JCC or vaad hakashrut.

So this morning, as I'm finishing putting on tefillin at the 7:30 minyan (what a luxury – a 7:30 weekday minyan!), a gabbai from an earlier minyan comes by looking for a baal keriah. I volunteered, and “got the job.” I had a chance to help. Just three quick aliyot, but it made my morning and set a good tone for the day.

It was a tiny thing, but it was a way to see that, yes, even in mighty Toronto they come looking for you to help. And if you know how to handle a Yad, you'll be able to respond.

I

Today was the day of The Last Derashah, my last Shabbat as rabbi here in Allentown.

I opted not to post that derashah on the blog, for two reasons:
1) It didn’t have that strong a dvar torah component, and
2) It was really more of a love letter to my shul and community, an intimacy meant for the people I’ve been with for the past eight years. This blog is great, and I feel an attachment to my readers, but that’s nothing like the intensity of rabbi/congregant, rabbi/colleague, rabbi/friend.

Now, in retrospect, I can add a third reason for not publishing today’s speech: It was entirely too self-referential.

I talked about friendships and relationships, about minyannaires and daf yomi, about accomplishments and projects left incomplete, about committees and advisors and presidents, and about my children (and, of course, my inestimable Rebbitzen). And a lot of the sentences, way too many of the sentences, began with the personal pronoun.

I. I. Me. I. I. Me. And so on.

It didn’t sound that bad when I prepared the derashah, but standing there delivering it – largely because I ad-libbed large sections on things that occurred to me as I was speaking, a practice I avoid like the proverbial plague in a normal derashah – it was just entirely too much about me, my experiences, my views, my disappointments, my friends, my my my my my. So that’s another reason to leave it off of this blog.

I wasn’t really trying to make a lot out of myself; the speech wasn’t about trying to grab the spotlight. But I worry that others might have seen it that way. It reminded me of the older yeshiva guy who took me aside during Simchat Torah hakafot twenty years ago and told me, “You don’t always need to be in the middle.” I wasn’t trying to be in the middle, I was just having fun – but it stung then, and it has stayed with me. Don’t let yourself appear to be hogging the spotlight.

This is one of the funny things about the rabbinate, though; a rabbi must be humble and cannot seek to appease his ego, but you can’t be an effective rabbi if you are afraid of the appearance of spotlight-hogging. I do believe that the best rabbi-ing is done behind the scenes, but you lead the community charge on certain issues, you teach classes, you are, like it or not, a דוגמא אישית (role model), and you get up and speak to a captive audience every week.

So perhaps people already thought I was egocentric, and today’s speech just burnished that reputation. Don’t know; it’s time to focus on the big move. And along those lines, here’s a paraphrase of a hope-oriented midrash I cited in closing, from Bereishit Rabbah 30:

Rabbi Shemuel [bar Nachmeni?] taught a lesson about five people from Tanach-

• Regarding Noach… we learn that even millstones were eroded in the water of the flood, but then it says, ‘These are the children of Noach who left the ark.’ How did they make it? ראה עולם חדש, they saw the possibility of a new world.

• Regarding Yosef it first said, ‘They tortured his foot in chains,’ but then it says, ‘And Yosef became the viceroy.’ How did he make it? ראה עולם חדש, he saw the possibility of a new world.

• Regarding Moshe, first he fled from before Paroh and then he drowned Paroh in the sea! How did he make it? ראה עולם חדש, he saw the possibility of a new world.

• Iyyov first said, ‘I spill my bile earthward,’ and then it says, ‘And Gd added double for Iyyov.’ How did he make it? ראה עולם חדש, he saw the possibility of a new world.

• Regarding Mordechai , at first he was destined for hanging, and then he hung those who would have hung him. How did he make it? ראה עולם חדש, he saw the possibility of a new world.

ראה עולם חדש, they saw the possibility of a new world. If I can envision a new world, I can make it through to the other side of anything.

(The new Haveil Havalim is here!)

The Rabbi's Job Description

I mentioned here that I once surveyed my board, to get a better handle on their view of the rabbi's job description.

In that survey, I submitted sixteen scenarios, taken from eight different areas of rabbinic work, and asked them to answer (a) whether these were items for the rabbi to handle, and (b) how high a priority these should be for the rabbi, on a scale of 1 to 10.

I found the results very useful, and not entirely what I had expected. (To honor confidentiality, I will not discuss the actual results here. Sorry.)

In retrospect, I would do two things differently:
1) Poll the whole shul as well;
2) Change the ranking to 1-5 instead of 1-10; I find that people do better with 1-5.

Here are the scenarios:

Halachic Authority
Offering religious guidance on when to recite certain prayers or blessings
Handling kashrut questions

Officiant
Addressing ideas for making the shul davening more inspirational
Helping plan and organize ritual celebrations

Educator
Implementing programs for communal and individual study
Making sure the library is an up-to-date, well-stocked resource

Counselor
Advising on ways to relate to a lesbian daughter
Providing marital counseling

Pastor
Making sure members know the shul is “there for them” and responsive to them
Providing short-term assistance in a financial crisis

Program Coordinator
Drafting a flyer publicizing a shul event
Recruiting people for a shul program

Community Representative
Writing a column on a Jewish theme for the local newspaper
Serving as the Jewish representative on the board of the local hospice

Building manager
Adjusting the heat or A/C for the morning minyan
Making sure the synagogue building is open for a program

Take the survey; I'd love to see what you - and your shul board - do with it...

Beit Midrash vs. Shul, Theory vs. Practice

The other day I was reminded of the difference between the beit midrash and the shul. It was an amusing reminder, and it made me think about my current transition from shul back to beit midrash.

After Shacharit I presented a technical halachah related to HaMotzi (the blessing recited before eating bread). If you are allergic to technical halachah, you might want to skip the next three paragraphs.

I pointed out two competing imperatives: We want to minimize the interruption between reciting HaMotzi and eating the bread, but we also want to recite the berachah upon a whole loaf, if possible, to show respect for the berachah. So when do we actually cut the bread?

Early sources, such as the Rosh, felt that cutting the bread does not constitute a significant interruption. Others agree, particularly with thin-crusted bread like ours. Nonetheless, some suggest one should satisfy the “interruption” concern by starting to cut the bread - without cutting too deeply - before reciting HaMotzi.

The Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim 167:1) records this as the recommended practice, but the Rama notes that one should not do this on Shabbat. On Shabbat we are especially concerned about using two whole loaves (memorial for the manna, and more) and about avoiding any damage to those loaves, so we don’t cut the loaf at all before the berachah. The Mishneh Berurah supports this as well.

Fine, a straightforward after-davening halachah to start the day.

But that day we had a group from Baltimore visiting the area, and a young man, perhaps late high school at Ner, mentioned politely that he had seen a sefer suggesting cutting the bread before HaMotzi on Shabbat as well. He couldn’t remember the source, but someone had showed it to him.

I took a few minutes to do some superficial looking, and found nothing in the standard halachah sefarim – Rosh, Tur and Beit Yosef, Aruch haShulchan, even Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, all seem to agree with what the Rama presents. Some (Aruch haShulchan, Darkei Moshe from the Mordechai in Eruvin*) note that cutting on Shabbat like the weekday isn’t a disaster, but no one specifically recommends cutting before HaMotzi on Shabbat.

I am certain that the young man did have a source (and yes, I asked him to contact me if he were to find it). For every halachah, there is always a rishon (early source) somewhere, or certainly an acharon (later authority) somewhere, with a reason to disagree with the mass of halachic authorities. Sometimes the disagreement is because of lomdut (deep analysis), sometimes it’s because of an exotic source, sometimes it’s because of an overall shitah (thematic approach) or shikul hadaat (weighing opposing considerations and coming up with a conclusion). But there’s always someone, on every issue, who will go against the status quo.

When I was in beit midrash, I – like many others – was always concerned about these dissident views. I would learn them, enjoy them, and look for ways to accommodate them. For example: At the seder I preferred the haggadah that had unique ways for covering and uncovering, picking up and putting down, ordering the hallel and its berachah, etc.

But a shul rabbi’s presentation of halachah is a different story; a shul rabbi must offer rulings that are clear, that are grounded in mainstream sources rather than unique points of view, and that are practical for the hamon am (general population). Lomdut is saved for shiurim, and kept out of psak. I feel that to do otherwise is irresponsible and irrational, and erodes people’s trust in the rabbinate.

So in a two-minute halachic lesson after davening, or in addressing a shailah, I generally go with straight mishneh berurah. I may note dissident views occasionally, but not to provide a recommended practice.

To return to my opening paragraph: Now that I am transitioning out of the pulpit and into more of a beit midrash role, but still actively teaching in the community, I suppose I will find myself straddling these two worlds. Should be fun.


*Note that the Mordechai doesn't quite say this. The Mordechai says that bread which has been partially cut still qualifies for lechem mishnah. He does not discuss preferences for HaMotzi. But the implication is what the Darkei Moshe is using.

Tu b'Av - The Fifteenth of Av

We are taught that Tu b’Av - the fifteenth day of the month of Av on our calendar - is one of the two greatest days on the Jewish calendar, sharing the title with Yom Kippur. Tu b'Av is celebrated tonight and tomorrow, August 4-5 of this year.

For last year's Tu b'Av Haveil Havalim, I offered a digest of the gemara's explanations (Taanit 30b-31a) for why Tu b'Av is a Jewish holiday.

Here is that information again, with a couple of added notes interspersed:

1. On Tu b’Av, the die-off of the Desert Generation stopped, so that the remaining Jewish nation knew they would enter Israel, and so that Gd again spoke to Moshe (Devarim 2:16-17).

Note, as well, that Tosafot (Bava Batra 121a) offers an alternative explanation of the "end of the die-off" and its association with Gd speaking to Moshe again:

Tosafot notes that a shivah observance beginning on Tisha b'Av would end on Tu b'Av. Gd would not speak to Moshe during a period of mourning, since we are taught that one cannot experience prophecy when he is depressed (Shabbat 30b) - so Gd would only have spoken to Moshe after the end of the shivah period.

2. On Tu b’Av, the Civil War between Binyamin and the rest of the Jews (see the end of the book of Shoftim) stopped.

3. When Moshe announced that Israel’s land would be divided among patrilineally determined tribes, and that men would inherit land, Machlah, Noah, Chaglah, Milkah and Tirtzah requested the power to inherit their deceased father Tzelafchad’s portions. This was granted to them, but among the consequences was a decree that women who inherited land would need to marry within their tribes, guaranteeing that when their sons inherited their land, it would remain within the tribe. This decree was lifted, broadening marriage options and gladdening shadchanim everywhere, on Tu b’Av.

4. After the Bar Kochba revolt was smashed by the Romans in 135 CE, the victors refused to allow us to bury our dead. Years later - on Tu b’Av - the Romans pioneered the now-routine practice of returning murdered Jews, and permitted us to bury them.

5. When the Northern Kingdom of Yisrael split off from the Southern Kingdom of Yehudah, Yeravam, leader of the north, set up roadblocks to keep Jews from the north away from Yerushalayim and the Beit haMikdash. Those roadblocks were removed, generations later - on Tu b’Av.

6. Tu b’Av, coming midway through the summer heat, is when we finish cutting wood for the korbanot of the Beit haMikdash, and so it is a day of siyyum, celebrating completion of this great mitzvah.
Note that according to some authorities, this is the origin of the practice of celebrating completion of a portion of Torah with a siyyum.

7. Tu b’Av comes at around the time when the nights begin to lengthen and the days begin to shorten (not precisely, of course, since Tu b’Av is a lunar date!). From this point on, then, we have less time to work in the fields, but more time to study Torah at night.

ט"ו שמח! Happy Tu!

My first JACS meeting

I went to my first JACS (Jewish Alcoholics, Chemically Dependent Persons, and Significant Others) meeting Sunday evening. I’ve counseled addicts before, I’ve read up on addiction, but I’d never been to a JACS meeting.

I won't discuss the meeting, of course; anonymity is a core principle. But I do want to say one thing about JACS, rabbinic participation and my own participation.

Our shul has been hosting these meetings on a weekly basis for several months, and this is the first time I answered their persistent invitation to join in. I’m glad I did. I’m sorry it took me so long.

I do know why it took me so long: Fear.

It’s not odd or unusual that I was afraid; any rabbi would be afraid:
• Here is a group of people who have their own rituals and language, and who are reputed to be highly sensitive to inappropriate behavior and language.
• Those who don’t know you may not like you. Those who do know you may not be happy you are there.
• You are afraid of being judged for your clothing, your profession, your life. You worry: Will I be rejected?

(Hmmm… sounds a lot like the reasons people are afraid to come into shul, actually.)

• And, of course, I had all sorts of other commitments for the meeting times. We started hosting JACS at the time I started getting involved in launching the Toronto beit midrash, so I’ve been busy with the shul and community here as well as the new venture there… lots of things competing for my time…

(Yes, sounds a lot like the reasons people give for not coming to shul, come to think of it.)

But I went, finally, on what was likely my last Sunday night in Allentown, and I’m glad I did.

I wouldn’t say it was an earth-shattering experience; I wouldn’t say I was blown away by the experience. I wasn’t. It was moving, yes, and in many ways, but the main thing is that it broke a barrier for me, letting me see that I could participate and not be rejected and survive.

I was stunned afterward to learn that other communities, much larger than ours, don’t have regular JACS meetings. I don’t understand why. But I know that I’ve found another way to serve (one of the first things I did when I got home was to look up the JACS Toronto website), and I hope that other rabbis will soon find it, and broaden their comfort zones, too.

[This week’s Haveil Havalim is here!]

Religion leads to immorality (Derashah Vaetchanan 5769)

Richard Dawkins, among others, has alleged that religion inspires immoral behavior.

Judging from the events of last week, I’d have to concede the point; numerous rabbis were arrested for involvement in money laundering, tax evasion and, allegedly, even organ marketing. Add those allegations to several scandals in the recent past, and the evidence certainly seems to indicate that religion – or, at least, Judaism - does not provide moral guidance.

The community knows it, too. This past Tuesday night, Borough Park, New York hosted an אסיפה, a gathering, of the chareidi community. The title was “A Legal Symposium,” and the goal was to discuss an American Jew’s obligation to obey the laws of the United States. Agudas Yisroel officials, chassidic rebbes and an attorney all agreed: A Jew is obligated to obey the law of the land. A Jew is obligated not to steal. A Jew is obligated to be honest.

A חידוש, what a novel idea! For this we needed an אסיפה? For this we needed a 'legal symposium?' Several years ago, Governor Ed Rendell cited his father as saying, "The ones who spend the longest time in synagogue on Saturdays are the biggest crooks from Monday to Friday." Gd forbid! But doesn't it sound like he's right? Does this bizarre phenomenon not prove that Dawkins is right as well, that religion – or, at least, Judaism – fails to provide a moral compass, and may, in fact, provide the opposite?


I think the answer is Yes, in part. Religion can lead to immorality, Judaism can lead to immorality, and I believe it is, in part, because Judaism inspires an arrogant complacence:

• The Torah sets a standard of behavior which includes being careful about what we eat, careful about how we dress, careful about what we say, careful about how we engage in business.
• The Torah gives us timetables for when to eat and when not to eat, when to pray, when to celebrate and when to mourn.
• The Torah gives us guidelines for raising our children and honoring our parents, helping our neighbors and helping those who are not our neighbors.
And the Torah says regarding all of these standards, “This is the way to live. These are the values to have. This is the way to be.”

The result is that a Jew can look at her Torah, a Jew who is even minimally observant can look at his own behavior, and feel superior to others, saying, “Based on the Torah’s priorities, I do all right! I see that other people don’t pray, I see that people value selfishness over philanthropy, I see that people eat whatever they wish – I may not be a saint, but I give tzedakah, I come to shul occasionally, I don’t eat treif… Compared to what I see around me, I’m doing pretty well!” And so the complacence and arrogance begins.

Even worse: The more scrupulous a person is in his observance, the closer her behavior adheres to the Torah’s recommended lifestyle, the greater the temptation to arrogance.


That’s when the crime begins, because this sense of superiority leads to terrible rationalizations:
Just as a husband might rationalize in his superiority, “I’m better to my family than other guys are, so it’s all right for me to do other things on the side,”
And just as a business owner might rationalize in his superiority, “I’m more honest than other business owners and so it’s all right for me to file private receipts as business expenses,”
So, too, a Jew in his superiority might fool himself, saying, “I do more to satisfy Gd’s expectations than other people do, so it’s all right for me to take a little money under the table, it’s all right for me to cut corners.”
And so Dawkins is proved correct: Religion encourages sin.


But our parshah provides a way to avoid that sense of superiority, when it directs us away from comparing ourselves to others and away from self-satisfaction with partial achievements, and toward a higher goal.

Right after proclaiming how wonderful it is to be a nation with such righteous laws, Moshe warns, ”רק השמר לך ושמר נפשך מאד פן תשכח את הדברים אשר ראו עיניך ופן יסורו מלבבך כל ימי חייך, Be very careful! Guard your life - and מאד, guard your life intensely! – lest you forget what your eyes saw, lest it stray from your heart, at any point in your lifetime! Guard your life intensely!”
What are we supposed to remember so closely, and with such a powerful warning? “יום אשר עמדת לפני ה' אלקיך בחורב, The day you stood before HaShem your Gd at Har Chorev, Har Sinai.”

Not, “Remember to keep the Torah’s lifestyle,” and not, “Keep a checklist of the mitzvot and make sure you satisfy every one of them.” Rather, “Remember that you encountered Gd at Har Sinai!”

The goal of the Torah is not simply to meet a certain standard of behavior, such that I might be satisfied with being better than others. The Torah's standard of behavior is meant to bring me to a greater goal:

The goal of the Torah is for me to encounter Gd once again, to live with Gd, as Adam and Chavah did in Eden and as our ancestors did at Sinai, whether in shul or at home or at work. It means to feel when I rise in the morning “מודה אני לפניך – I thank You, Gd, as I rise before you,” to daven with a sense of “דע לפני מי אתה עומד – Know before Whom you stand.” To go to work with “שויתי ה' לנגדי תמיד– I place Gd before me, always.”

My gauge of success is whether I have a total awareness of HaShem in my daily life.


When I have that goal, I look to achieve perfection, and I am less likely to slip into immoral behavior. This is implicit in the Torah’s repeated warnings, "‘ויראת מאלקיך,’ You shall live in awe of Gd.”

• לא תקלל חרש ויראת מאלקיך – Don’t curse a deaf person – live in awe of Gd
• ולפני עור לא תתן מכשול ויראת מאלקיך – Don’t place an obstacle before a blind person – live in awe of Gd
• מפני שיבה תקום והדרת פני זקן ויראת מאלקיך – Rise before the aged and honor the elderly – live in awe of Gd
• לא תונו איש את עמיתו ויראת מאלקיך – Don’t oppress others – live in awe of Gd

And so on. The Torah repeats it again, and again, and again. And the gemara explains: In many cases I will think I can get away with it. I will be seduced by the lure of easy money, of social status. I will know that, hey, everybody does it. And at that point, remember: The goal is not to be better than others, the goal is to encounter Me. My goal is “שויתי ה' לנגדי תמיד,” to be perpetually aware of Gd, and this does not allow for immorality, this does not allow for criminality, this does not allow for cutting corners just because everyone else does it. Regardless of where I stand in relation to others, my concern is my relationship with HaShem.


This morning, we read the Haftorah of Nachamu, Yeshayah’s message of consolation to the Jewish people. After the desolation of Tisha b'Av, after the brutal massacres and painful exiles, HaShem tells us to be comforted. HaShem pledges to take us back into that close relationship we had long ago.

But when will this happen? When we are עמי, when HaShem can say that we have become עמי, My nation. When none of us overlook sin, commit crimes and immerse ourselves in scandal out of a misguided sense of superiority. When יום אשר עמדת לפני ה' אלקיך בחורב, standing with HaShem at Sinai, is again a reality, when שויתי ה' לנגדי תמיד, when we perpetually stand with HaShem.

-
Notes:

1. I am not leaping to legal conclusions. I know nothing about the specific guilt or innocence of the accused in this case. However, I am speaking about the collective set of scandals which have engulfed Jewish communities in the past few years, and specifying this most recent case only because of the אסיפה in Borough Park.

2. I know that there are multiple causes for scandals. I don't claim to be able to simplify any of them down to some easy formula. But I do believe this is a key factor.

3. The gemara on ויראת מאלקיך is found, among other places in Bava Metzia 58b.

4. Also tying into this idea: Akavya ben Mahallel's idea (Pirkei Avot 3:1) that one will never sin if he is contemplates the fact that as low as his physical origin and ends, he will still end up standing before Gd one day.

5. Motzaei Shabbat Update: Having now delivered this derashah, I'm troubled that quite a few listeners took this as a "them" derashah - as in, "Boy, rabbi, you really gave it to them!" Not explicitly, of course, but people seemed to think this was about some other group, those nasty people, and not themselves. Perhaps I could have mitigated the effect had I noted that the same sense of superiority and failure to fulfill part of Torah applies to people who are honest and fair to others, but feel they can cut corners on their service of Gd...

How NOT to name your Jewish institution

I’ve been working on selecting a URL (web address) for our new Yeshiva University-Torah miTzion Beit Midrash of Toronto, and I’m having a rough time of it.

Our sister organization in Chicago chose www.chicagotorah.org, which isn’t bad, but www.torontotorah.org is a little of a harder sell, because of all of the to’s in it (too much TO is bad for you, as Buffalo will find out).

So I started thinking about naming Jewish institutions, in general, and how challenging it can be. A good name, like a logo, is catchy but also meaningful, brief and spare but able to encompass the key elements of your identity. That’s not so simple.

One way to do it is to get good initials, but good initials are hard to find. The Ner Yisrael kollel in Atlanta is called ASK, Atlanta Scholars Kollel. That’s great - for them. For us, that would turn into TSK (Toronto Scholars Kollel), which conjures up images of a disapproving schoolmarm. We could go with OSK (Ontario Scholars Kollel), but that would sound more like one of those odd creatures the JPS invented in translating the Torah's list of kosher and treif animals ni (Anyone know what an ossifrage is? Without checking wikipedia?).

You can try the one-from-column-A, one-from-column-B approach; this is popular with shuls:
Column A: Ohavei, Rodfei, Chovevei, Bnei, Tomchei, Shaarei
Column B: Chaim, Yosher, Simchah, Torah, Shalom, Emet
But this is too pedestrian.

Another way to pick a name is to pick a Hebrew word that communicates meaning and identity, but that can be tricky as well. Hebrew words are loaded with biblical and midrashic associations, some of which are negative.

I thought about tzafon.com, since tzafon means north, but two problematic connotations immediately came to mind: “מצפון תפתח הרעה, Evil will come from tzafon/north (Yirmiyah 1:14),” and “הרוצה שיחכים ידרים, הרוצה שיעשיר יצפין. One who wants to become wise should go south; one who wants to become wealthy should go tzafon/north (Bava Batra 25b).”

It reminds me of the founding of Edah; did those who picked that name not immediately think of “עד מתי לעדה הרעה הזאת How long will I have to put up with this evil edah/group (Bamidbar 14:26),” and similar negative associations?

(We had a similar problem in naming our children. Miriam? No, she had tzaraat. Yaakov? He experienced horrible suffering for much of life. Etc.)

So the search continues. And don’t even get me started on the matter of a logo…

I visit chabad.org on Shabbos

(No, I don’t, but you’ll see what I mean in a few paragraphs.)

“Thou shalt not study Torah,” beginning at midday today, erev Tisha b’Av, as part of our mourning for the Beit haMikdash.

As the gemara (Taanit 30a) explains, “One may not learn Torah, Neviim or Ketuvim, or study mishnah or talmud, midrash, halachot or aggadot.” There are permitted exceptions, principally for sad topics and study related to mourning, but the overall theme is that Torah learning is a joyous experience, so we don’t engage in it on Tisha b’Av.

[I wonder if this law is not also related to the aftermath of the Golden Calf. Per the midrash, when the Jews received the Torah they also received special crowns. After the Golden Calf, HaShem instructed them, “Remove your crown” (Shemot 32:5-6), apparently a reference those crowns. “You have sinned; you don’t deserve to don the glory of Torah.”]

Many of us take this law lightly; how could Gd punish a Jew for studying Torah?

And we have other such limitations on Torah study. We are not to think about Torah in the bathroom, or when inappropriately dressed. We are taught that it is sinful to study Torah without first reciting birchot hatorah, the special blessings for Torah study. And for all of them, there are those who ignore them; how could Gd punish a Jew for studying Torah?

It reminds me of the Jew who studies the parshah every Shabbat by reading divrei torah on torah.org, or ou.org, or chabad.org.

Were this Jew not reading divrei torah on-line, he would likely be engaged in some other activity that I consider desecration of Shabbat – shopping at the mall, driving to a park, talking on the phone, flipping channels on TV. In that sense, it’s better that he read divrei torah, I suppose.

Again: How could Gd punish a Jew for studying Torah?

I suppose it comes down to our sense of ownership of Torah, our feeling that we have a certain right to evaluate and set priorities among its various imperatives. A mitzvah is only a mitzvah when the Torah defines it as a mitzvah.

Perhaps a good Tisha b’Av example of this is in the Kamtza/Bar Kamtza story (Gittin 55b-56a, and see also the version in Eichah Rabbah), when the sages are seated at a feast and Bar Kamtza is embarrassed by the host.

The sages don’t protest, because they think it’s better to be humble (see the Eichah Rabbah version, especially). But the Torah’s priority is to protect Bar Kamtza, who is being attacked.

And perhaps the same thing happened with the rabbis in the Brooklyn/New Jersey scandal of this past week. Maybe they thought they were helping generate tzedakah money, maybe they had some other justification for committing these financial crimes. [I am NOT justifying it; my point is that people who set their own priorities get into trouble.]

When we set our own priorities, we get skewed results and rationalizations. Better to hold off on Torah (other than the permitted parts) during Tisha b’Av, remove the crown, absorb the intense reality of exile, and get started on rebuilding the Beit haMikdash.

[Of course, the big problem is when skewed-view human beings try to define the Torah’s objective priorities… implementation is harder than theory…]

Keeping shuls from eating their rabbis

Back in May I wrote a post, “Why shuls eat their rabbis,” on the tendency of congregations to consume their rabbis (with or without ketchup, even on Yom Kippur and Tisha b'Av).

I have since followed up, within a group of rabbis, regarding some ideas of what rabbis might do to mitigate the problems inherent in the rabbi-congregation relationship. My list of ideas was popular enough that I will present an updated version here:

1) Make sure the shul membership and board are clear on the rabbi's job description.
This may be done with a clearly-written contract, with shul surveys and questionnaires, and with personal conversations, among other means.

A few years ago I felt my board wasn't presenting a clear sense of my job. I distributed a survey at a board meeting, listing a dozen different scenarios from different aspects of shul life, and asking them to prioritize what they felt should, and should not, be the rabbi's job. The results were enlightening for me.


2) Stoop to PR
Rabbi, remember! The shul at large doesn't see what you do. Even individuals often don't see what you do for them, as individuals.

Rabbis (not me, but others) are often so good at what they do, that they make it look easy. People don't see the time spent preparing a shiur or derashah, or arranging a shidduch, or quelling a dispute, or counseling a troubled teen, or visiting a prison, etc.

The answer may be to do a little subtle PR, letting people know (in general, without specifics) what's going on. I strongly dislike doing this, finding it both distasteful and self-serving, but sometimes a little PR is necessary.


3) Do what they recommend
Situation: A committee/individual makes a recommendation for a program, or a way to approach something in davening, or a way to address a community need, and the rabbi feels another way would be better. Sometimes that rabbi and congregant have entirely different agenda. So the rabbi does what he thinks is right.

The rabbi is often right, but people grow bitter if they think the rabbi isn't listening to them.

I know that I have a tendency to want to do things my way; something in me rebels automatically when I am told, "You should visit X" or "You should do it this way," particularly because congregants are often not tactful in making those suggestions. But - when I am in a good frame of mind - I swallow that rebellion, listen, and sometimes even try the suggestion despite being certain it won't work.

Note: Of course, congregants sometime expect unreasonable things, and yes, the rabbi must say No. Hopefully, though, the rabbi will have a strong Yes background against which the No will be viewed.


4) Help congregants see the big picture
Shul members, including the president, don't "live" the shul in the way that the rabbi does. The shul occupies only a small portion of their activities, let alone attention. The result is that they often don't think about the chesed and shiurim and minyanim and maintenance issues and kitchen issues and so on. They likely don’t even know many of the members.

Find ways to bring people in on what’s happening beyond their personal space, so that they will be aware of the life of the Shul, its needs and demands. This is not about PR for the rabbi, but PR for the shul itself.


5) Remember that you are a hired hand
Keeping this in mind might help a rabbi hold on to his sanity.

To some people in a shul, everything the rabbi does is automatic and required, because he is paid. A volunteer who puts in two hours for the weekly kiddush or comes to a weekly meeting and makes phone calls is doing more than a rabbi who puts in 80 hours per week, because the rabbi is drawing a salary for his time.

And there is truth to this view. Granted that the rabbi will never be compensated for the extra work he puts in, he signed on for this job of his own free will. He competed against other candidates for it, and negotiated a contract to do it. It’s hardly fair for him to expect to be honored as a volunteer, granted all of his extra work.

Hopefully, the rabbi who keeps this in mind will maintain realistic expectations.


Those are some things that rabbis can do to avoid strife. Now: What can congregants do toward the same end?

For in truth, no period lives for itself alone

I love reading, and re-reading, Rav Hirsch; he has few peers for both depth and eloquence.

R' Samson Raphael Hirsch, Horeb, paragraph 234:

"Just as the Torah preserves those moments when Israel flourished, and raises as holy above other days in the year those festival days commemorating the creation of the people and its preservation so that Israel should devote itself to the remembrance and the study of the truths they posit, whereby Israel may live and learn to understand itself and dedicate itself to the fulfilment of its allotted tasks, so did our sages institute remembrance days for those moments which Israel experienced when its blossoms were seen to fall, remembrance days which summon Israel to the purification as well as to the sanctification of its life and to the proper fulfilment of its conduct of life.

"For the fathers of our people understood profoundly that the fall of the people was not the pathway to the grave. It but changed the scene for Israel's activity, summoning it to new obligations, or, rather, to another aspect of that same fulfilment of its way of living which was its 'vocation' in times of prosperity.

"They saw that as in happy days Israel received the call to revere Gd humbly and to love Him with gladness, so did Israel receive the call to be the lofty example, steadfastly to keep its faith in Gd as well as its filial piety even in the days of misfortune.

"They saw that the time of its dispersion, whose labour-pangs it experienced, was but a fatherly chastisement to teach Israel, to strip it of pleasure-seeking and self-seeking, both of which undermine Israel's fortune.

"They saw that this period had as its immediate aim a betterment and a renewal of life, with the ultimate goal of furthering the advancement of all mankind.

"They realized how necessary for that upbringing, which was to act as a guide, were warnings and correctings and challenge; and, imbued with the spirit of the Torah, they recognized an excellent means in their subjective retrospect of the past.

"For in truth, no period lives for itself alone. Generations rise and fall so that those who follow may well learn from the glow of their sunrise as well as from that of their sunset; that they may reap the fruits of the rise and the fall of those who went before, avoid their errors and go forward and upward, basing their edifice upon the virtues of their progenitors."

[This week's Haveil Havalim is here.]

How to avoid the next Gmach Shefa Chaim scandal

I’ve blogged quite a bit about the issue of irresponsibility and transparency in Jewish philanthropy and tzedakah organizations – see here and here, for example – but the newest scandal, the New Jersey/New York money laundering (and organ sales?!) scandal, demands a response.

So far, it sounds like a basic money-laundering scheme, for all of the complexity of the different pieces involved. Criminals run illicit businesses, and send checks to so-called tzedakah funds, which then spend the money for “program services” that funnel the money back to the criminals. The tzedakah funds benefit by receiving a commission or a fee.

We can’t prevent these altogether – criminals will always find ways to commit crimes – but I believe we could do a lot to stem the tide with the following four rules:


First: Give only to tzedakah organizations that file a 990 or similar financial disclosure of their funding sources, their program services, and their oversight.

I don’t care if they are exempt. Yes, preparing a 990 will cost them money. But it’s a responsible way to function. I hate to say this, but I will no longer give significant money to Ner Yisrael, to the OU, to National Council of Young Israel, to Chaim Berlin, etc. They are all legally exempt from transparency, but as the Rama wrote in Yoreh Deah 257:2, tzedakah distributors must transcend their legal obligations in order to demonstrate innocence in the eyes of ה' and the Jewish people.

I would accept an annual public meeting with an explanation of the organization's finances, though. (Many synagogues, including my own, do this.)


Second: Give only to organizations that can explain their mission and program services in a clear, coherent way.
Open-ended gemachs, as well as Rabbi’s Benevolent Funds that don’t offer a clearly defined mission, are too open to abuse.


Third: Give only to organizations that mail you an annual report.
The report should summarize and explain the information outlined in Item 1 above – funding sources, program services, and oversight, and any significant changes therein. I do this for my Benevolent Fund (this year's report is here), and it has made me much more careful about how I handle the Fund.


Fourth: Eliminate the culture of winking and nodding.
As I discussed here, communities often assume that tzedakah funds, including the Rabbi’s Benevolent Fund, can somehow operate outside the law.

I have had people try to give me honoraria by writing checks to the Benevolent Fund;
I have had people try to write checks to support individuals and claim a tax deduction by doing it through the benevolent fund (you can’t claim a tax deduction for checks written to a specific person) [Yes, a fund can collect for individuals if the collection is in-line with the mission, but this is easily bent and broken.];
A few years ago a local bank went public and offer shares to local people, and I had out-of-town people try to get me to open an account with benevolent fund money, as their partners.

This is wrong, and it creates a culture of approving illegal operations. It must stop.


Ultimately, nothing will deter a determined criminal - but that doesn't mean we shouldn't bother with security systems for our homes, and for our communities.

Shul What-Ifs

I was reading a piece on CNN's site about odd declarations in job interviews (examples: "I have a problem with authority." "You touch somebody and they call it sexual harassment!" "I've never heard such a stupid question." "What is your company's policy on Monday absences?") and was reminded of something I contemplate every once in a while: Shul What-Ifs.

Over the years, I’ve had a few What-Ifs - unexpected and/or awkward moments, the sort of occurrence you don't expect to happen, and which you need to handle immediately. These include congregant outbursts, kids running amok (moreso than usual, yes), a sefer torah nearly being dropped, a fire alarm being pulled by accident, a cell phone ringing during Shabbos davening, a man seating himself in the women’s section, etc.

Every once in a while, though, I wonder how we would handle something truly unusual. As in:

• During the rabbi’s speech, someone stands up and starts singing the national anthem;

• The chazan for musaf says the repetition of the amidah, word for word, backwards;

• All of the people sitting in an entire section of the shul stand up for the silent amidah – and recite it aloud;

• All of the people sitting in an entire section of the shul stand up for the silent amidah – and turn to face south while reciting it;

• All of the people sitting in an entire section of the shul stand up for the silent amidah – during the Torah reading;

• A sinkhole suddenly opens up under the bimah;

• The rabbi abruptly halts mid-speech, and sits down.

I like to contemplate these cases (especially if the chazan goes on too long… now you know what I’ve been mulling all these years…), and wonder what would happen in my shul in these situations.

What would happen in yours? And what unexpected/awkward circumstances have you witnessed?

The Nine Days, and the challenge of hoping for mashiach and redemption

The Nine Days of intense mourning begin tonight, leading up to Tisha b’Av. As always, at this time of year I grow depressed. I think about how many times I have observed this period, how many times our nation has observed this period, without seeing the geulah (redemption).

It’s a cruel parody of hope, the way we sing “Next year in a rebuilt Yerushalayim (and while I recognize and value what we have, it is not a re-built Yerushalayim; I'm not doing the Nachem debate right now, I've done that elsewhere),” and the way we say to each other in advance of the Three Weeks, “If mashiach hasn’t come by then.”

Over a decade ago I spent time transcribing tapes of Rav Soloveichik’s Tisha b’Av shiurim, and I can hear his voice talking about how communities in Europe buried their kinot books after each Tisha b’Av, declaring that they wouldn’t need those books the following year. The Rav would point out the line in the kinot (mourning prayers of Tisha b’Av), “בכל שנה אומרת היא השנה הזאת,” “Each year she declares: This is the year!”

It’s all too depressing.

My depression comes from two opposite approaches, clobbering me in the middle:

1) I am wowed by the heights that observant Jewry has reached. I agree with those who say that we have reached a stage at which more Jews, in sheer numbers although not in percentage of the nation, are more learned and more carefully observant and more full of chesed, than at any point since the destruction of the beit hamikdash. We have public shiurim and mitzvah campaigns and outreach efforts, and even if they are not enough, is not our motivation sincere and our effort complete, and do we not view effort, rather than achievement, as the essence?

And so I wonder: What more can we do, to deserve that a mashiach-quality leader be sent for us? If we do all of this and still are not worthy, what more can we possibly do?

2) And then, on the other end, I see how flawed we are, how flawed all of us are, everywhere on the spectrum of religiosity. Even those who are most careful about the kashrut of their meat are guilty of lashon hara (harmful speech), even those who are most careful about learning Torah are guilty of sinat chinam (unfounded animosity toward others), even those who are most benevolent toward others are still spending unearthly sums on luxury and working long hours to fund it instead of dedicating their time to Torah. And more Jews, in sheer numbers as well as in percentage of the nation, are more corrupt or farther from Judaism than at any point since the destruction of the beit hamikdash.

These are terrible things to say, I know; the great Yeshayah was punished for saying “כסדם היינו, We were like Sodom.” So I will not compare us to Sdom, but I will say that in my experience, and certainly based on myself, we are, as a nation, far from where we need to be.

And I wonder: How, then, can we be expected to deserve a mashiach-quality leader, and redemption? Is it at all possible, or are we set up to fail?


Which, perhaps, is one reason why the Rambam demanded that we believe in the arrival of Mashiach, “להאמין ולאמת שיבא – to trust in his arrival and to see it as truth.” Working toward being worthy of mashiach is insufficient, because depression is too tempting; we need to believe that we can bring it, that this world can be worthy. If we cannot believe it, we cannot bring it.

We need to believe; we need to hope. But how can I?

My approach: I won’t deny the huge odds, but I will ignore them. I will focus on the immediate job in front of me – this class, this relationship, this page of gemara, this tefillah (prayer). I will plod away, as Jews have for 1941 years. I will focus not on a mega-goal of mashiach, but on a micro-goal of mitzvah.

And I will hope and trust in redemption, that each successive step will bring us one step closer to defying those odds.

Banging on the shtender

One of the best classes I ever took, in any field, was Homiletics, with Rabbi Haskel Lookstein.

Rabbi Lookstein taught this course on Fridays at YU, for members of the semichah program. I can’t imagine that the rabbi of Kehillath Jeshurun and principal of Ramaz had nothing else to do on a Friday morning, but every week he was there, helping us understand how to convey the Torah we had learned to various types of audiences.

I know I am not the only one who is greatly in his debt for this service; I'm still not a great orator, but I learned quite a bit in those sessions.

One of my favorite observations from Rabbi Lookstein’s class was this: You can only bang on the shtender [lectern] once. That’s it; you can come close, stop your hand just short, but once you actually hit it, you can never do it again.

As I understood his point, hitting a shtender while presenting a derashah is a demonstration of both passion and certitude, and to do it repeatedly, especially on diverse topics, demonstrates either a surfeit of passion or a surfeit of certitude, neither of which wins over an audience.

I am someone of passion, but I am rarely someone of certitude, so ironclad confident in my judgment that I will demand everyone agree with me. So I am not generally tempted to bang the shtender.

I did it once, for a Shabbos Shuvah derashah four years ago, when I was speaking about lashon hara tearing down community institutions. It was a particularly fraught time in our community, and I was right, I think; that wasn’t a squandering of the pulpit-thumping privilege.

But I wonder whether there have not been other times I could have, should have, given that resounding bang, whether there were not other causes I should have championed with the fever of the committed and the fervor of the certain:

Shabbos observance.
Mikvah observance.
Domestic abuse.
Parents and children.
Racism.
Israel.

I’ve spoken about all of these, of course. All of them, in different ways, carry great weight for Jews as individuals, for Jewish families, for the Jewish nation and for the world. Any of them could have been a topic warranting the Big Bang.

But, in the final analysis, the speaker is compelled to choose his opportunity, and so I did.

What about your rabbi? What makes him bang the shtender? Nothing? Everything? Or certain topics?

Stay away from the cheerleaders

[Haveil Havalim is here!]

I've been going through the tens of thousands of emails stored on my shul computer, trying to decide which ones are relevant to leave behind for my successor. The result is a lot of trips down memory lane, mostly fun, a couple not so fun.

The other day I came across one particular set of unpleasant memories. It was a political issue, and I remember vividly how I got caught up in the stream of events and conversations, and was מפריז על המדה, going farther than was truly wise in the situation. It turned out mostly all right, but "winning ugly" doesn't leave me with a good feeling.

In retrospect, a lot of the problem came from listening to the Cheerleaders. I find that rabbis are particularly vulnerable to that problem.

A lot of us (even non-rabbis) believe we have everyone’s best interest at heart. Further, a lot of us (even non-rabbis, again) believe we are speaking based on Torah and Divine instruction (cf derashah here). The result is that we can slip into overreaching fairly easily. And cheerleaders make it worse.

Who are the cheerleaders?

People who share our agenda, so that they egg us on (from the sidelines, naturally) into ever louder, ever more vociferous commentary ("Yeah, you tell 'em, rabbi!"), and even more risky action ("Go for it!").

And not just those with a direct stake in the outcome. Friends in whose eyes we are surely in the right, since we are their friends. Friends who might be more objective but don’t live in our communities and don’t know the players, but who are certain that we must be on the side of right. And the enemies of our enemies, people who would not ordinarily stand by our sides but who will make an exception in this case because their foes are being vanquished.

These are the cheerleaders, and they are dangerous. They allow us to talk ourselves into taking outspoken positions, into overstepping reasonable rhetorical bounds, into acting before the time is right. (No, it's not just "They," it's very much "We" for listening, but this post is about the "They" part of it.)

All of which means we need to be carefully about choosing our sounding boards, and about listening to well-intentioned counsel.

Ah, the lessons to be found in well-preserved emails...

Of Nesiim and Parents and Flexible Authority (Derashah: Matot-Masei 5769)

Kalev ben Yefuneh, now 80 years old, nasi of Yehudah, a legend for his righteous stand against the meraglim some forty years earlier, strode into Moshe’s tent. He was accompanied by Shmuel ben Amihud, a newly appointed nasi replacing the deceased criminal Zimri. With them came 10 more leaders – Elidad ben Kislon, Buki ben Yagli, Chaniel ben Efod, each the leader of an entire shevet/tribe.

These twelve governors had been summoned by Moshe Rabbeinu, their great leader. Moshe had just announced his imminent death and appointed Yehoshua to succeed him, and now he gathered his governors… but for what? What would he tell them?


“וידבר משה אל ראשי המטות לבני ישראל לאמר זה הדבר אשר צוה ה' – And Moshe spoke to the heads of the tribes of the Jewish people, saying, ‘This is what Gd has commanded.’”

The leaders waited with bated breath.

“איש כי ידור נדר לה' ... לא יחל דברו – When someone makes a vow to Gd, he shall not make his word mundane. He must fulfill everything that comes from his mouth.”

At this point, perhaps, Achihud ben Shlomi turns to Paltiel ben Azan with a quizzical look: For laws of purity and shemitah and kashrut and inheritance Moshe didn’t summon us, but he gathered us from our important business to say, “People must keep their word?”


But then Moshe continued with laws about nullifying vows, about recognizing that commitments made in all sincerity might be in error, and might not be worth upholding.

And with this addition, perhaps, the reason for gathering the leaders of bnei yisrael became much more clear. This was a message that they, of all people, needed to hear – the message of nullifying one’s word.


Certainly, the laws of vows do apply to the entire nation – but Moshe first presented this message to the leaders, as a message targeted toward them. There is no דבר אל בני ישראל here – Moshe doesn’t say, “Tell this to the nation.” It’s a message which educates the leaders, first and foremost, in how to do their jobs.

These leaders would be crucial for the post-Moshe era. Moshe had just appointed Yehoshua as the federal leader of the Jewish people, but the nesiim, the tribal governors, would still be needed.
• There would be land to distribute.
• There would be disputes to resolve.
• The Jewish people in Israel would live tribally, doing almost nothing as a coherent whole.
• Even war would be handled by individual tribes, not by the nation.

And so Moshe follows up his appointment of Yehoshua by telling the nesiim: You still have a leadership role to play – and this is how I want you to play it:

לא יחל דברו – In your capacity as leaders, you may not make your words mundane political tools, saying one thing and meaning another, playing politics with carefully crafted remarks, saying what people want to hear in order to keep them happy. Your words are not חול, they are קודש - not mundane, but sacred.

But, at the same time, Moshe warns that a true leader recognizes the limitations of his קודש words. Chazal warned us, “ואל תשתחווה לדבריך, Do not bow to your words” – do not view your words as a sacrosanct idol, to be preserved and honored at all costs.


Perhaps better than any other Jewish leader, Moshe knows this balance.

• Moshe grew up at the knee of Paroh, a man who never learned how to back down, who pretended to retreat in the face of each מכה only to revert to his stubbornness in the end. Moshe saw what happens to a leader who cannot change course.

• But then, on the other hand, Moshe himself was sent on a mission in which he could not back down, in which he was to stand face-to-face with Pharoah over a period of months repeating variations on the same words , שלח את עמי, Send out my nation, no fewer than seven times.

• Which is not to say that even Moshe had the balance between backbone and flexibility quite right.
When Moshe charged Yehoshua with his mission, he said, כי אתה תבוא את העם הזה, Yehoshua, you will come into Israel with the nation – leading with the people, not forcing them to obey your words.
But HaShem corrected Moshe, saying, כי אתה תביא את העם הזה, You will bring this nation into Israel yourself – as the gemara elaborates, טול מקל והך על קדקדם, If they don’t listen then take a stick and hit them over the head!

And so Moshe warns the leaders: You will need to get this balance right.


One might argue that this lesson is obvious; do you really need Moshe Rabbeinu to tell you to be flexible? Does it really take the greatest leader of all time to remind you that Paroh is a bad role model?

Probably not – but the challenge for a Nasi is more complex, because a Nasi speaks with Divinely-invested authority; Gd warned the nation, ונשיא בעמך לא תאור, Do not attack the nasi; Gd required that we honor these people, and follow them, and so their words carry great weight. Further, the nasi speaks on behalf of government, on behalf of law and order, on behalf of the best interests of their shevatim and of the nation as a whole.

Seen in that light, a Nasi faces a great challenge: He must honor his words as Divinely-authorized edicts, but he must simultaneously override the temptation of claiming infalliblity.


Historically, there were times when the nesiim backed down on their Divinely inspired commands.

For example: A few decades after our parshah the tribe of Binyamin descended into lawlessness, and those nesiim, acting on Gd’s instructions to wage war against Binyamin, declared a religious ban against marrying anyone from that tribe. But when they saw the decline of Binyamin, they reversed themselves, recognizing that one cannot bow to his words, even words uttered in the name of Gd.


This is an important lesson for religious leaders, but it is also important for parents, because parents, too, are religious leaders, speaking with Divine authority.

When the Torah instructs, כבד את אביך ואת אמך, Honor your father and mother –
When the Torah warns, איש אמו ואביו תיראו, Have awe of your mother and father –
HaShem invests parents with religious authority like that of the nesiim, such that when parents speak to their children, Gd endorses their words.

Add to this the fact that we instruct our children for their own good, their own physical and spiritual well-being - telling them to get ready for school, to do their homework, to eat their vegetables, to wear a yarmulka or to come to shul or to give tzedakah – and it’s easy for us, like the nesiim, to view our words as inflexibly קודש.

So Moshe warns the nesiim, and he warns all of us: לא יחל דברו, don’t make your words mundane, but, on the other hand, know when to give in.

[I closed with a message for parents who are celebrating the birth of their children this week.]

-
Notes:

1. The opening thought - the perplexity of the nesiim and the appropriateness of Moshe's message for them - is built around a thought from Rav Baruch Yashar in בין השיטין של תורה.

2. "Do not bow to your words" is from Kallah Rabti 4:17. Moshe's charge to Yehoshua is in Sanhedrin 8a. The battle with Binyamin is in Shoftim 20-21.

3. We had celebrations for three babies this week. If not for that, I might have used Berachot 34a as the closer. HaShem vows to destroy the nation after the Eigel, and Moshe nullifies the neder. HaShem is omniscient, He knows He won't carry it out - so why make the neder in the first place? Perhaps to teach Moshe about the possibility of hafarat nedarim, of backing down.

Saving lives in shul

I’ll never forget it.

It was my first year in Allentown, Shabbat Chol haMoed Succot. An elderly gentleman was called up to the Torah for the third aliyah. He made the opening berachah, and we read the powerful words of that reading (Sh’mot 33:20-23):

And HaShem said to Moshe, “You cannot see My Face, for no man may see me and survive.”
And HaShem said additionally to Moshe, “Here is a place with Me; you will stand on this rock. When My glory passes, I will place you in the cleft in the rock, and I will shield you with My Hand until I have passed. And I will remove My Hand, and you will see My aftermath, but My Face will not be seen.”

The gentleman then recited the closing berachah, thanking Gd for giving us the Torah of truth – and then he died.

I didn’t know he was dead. He collapsed, and I caught him (I think). We laid him out on the bimah, and doctors rushed over to apply CPR and use our AED (automated external defibrillator), while an ambulance was called. The shul said tehillim, and eventually he was moved out and taken to the hospital. We continued davening; we found out later that he had passed away.

That was the first time I was faced with someone needing serious medical attention in shul, but it was by no means the last. Over the years we’ve had several people faint or have seizures, during davening or shul meals or just general use of the building, and I’ve learned a few lessons from the experiences. They may be obvious to everyone, but I'll post them here just in case.

1) A shul must have an AED and an oxygen tank, and people must be trained to use them.
Our shul had an AED before I arrived, thanks to the prescience of the membership. It’s a good thing; the AED has saved at least one life, and the oxygen has been used to treat many more.

2) If someone needs medical attention, keep the davening going, whether with tehillim or simply by continuing the normal davening.
This is somewhat counterintuitive, because it feels crass to go on with musaf while someone is fighting for his life. It certainly is difficult to maintain concentration, and the minyan may need to move to a different room in order to avoid disturbing the rescuers. Nonetheless, this is valuable for several reasons:
First, davening for someone always helps them.
Second, davening provides friends with something they can do.
Third, it helps for crowd control; having a hundred people mobbing the rescuers and keeping air from the patient is counterproductive, to say the least.

3) The rabbi does not need to be in the middle of the action.
I am CPR-trained and AED-trained, and, like many rabbis, I always want to be in the middle, doing something to help in the most concrete way possible. However, that isn’t necessarily the best place for the rabbi; finding another way to contribute may help others do likewise.

One other thought: We often encourage frail and recently-hospitalized people to come to shul, whether directly ("I look forward to seeing you in shul when you come out of the hospital") or indirectly ("We miss having you around.") This may not be the best tack.

Of course, people joke that because of our large number of doctors, and because we have equipment and experience, our shul is the safest place in town to pass out. There’s a lot of truth to it, certainly for someone who otherwise might have passed out at home, with no one else around. But, at the same time, the walk to shul might be the small exertion that puts someone at risk. Better to stay home and stay safe, daven to HaShem on Shabbat in private and join with the community during the week.

When you hear hoofbeats, think of horses, not zebras

The other night I attended a meeting in which a key participant avoided answering an important question. I passed a note to a friend, saying, “If it ducks like a duck, it’s a duck.” To which he replied with an equally zoological note, “When I hear hoofbeats, I think of zebras.”

I wasn’t familiar with this line, but it had the ring of a popular saying, so I tried to deduce what he meant.

My first thought was of Monty Python, of course, and the scene with the coconut-shells being rapped together to sound like hoofbeats… but I couldn’t see any relevance.

Then I thought it might have to do with the classic zebra question – is the zebra marked with white stripes on a black background, or black stripes on a white background? But that really had no relevance here, that I could see.

So then I thought about zebras and how life isn’t black-and-white. Perhaps I should hear hoofbeats and think of horses, understanding that life can be gray sometimes, rather than draw black-and-white conclusions a la zebras. Was this a rebuke about my swift judgment of the duck?

I was confused… so, upon arriving back at shul after the meeting, I turned to Wikipedia, and found out that it’s actually a medical aphorism, related to diagnosis. Horses are simple, Zebras are complex. Essentially, the message is this: When faced with symptoms, assume the least-complex diagnosis first. (There’s even a book with that title, available at Amazon here.)

(Which, by the way, means that when I took a labyrinthine route to reason out the meaning of those words, I actually ended up violating their advice...)

To put this in other words, the line is another version of Occam’s Razor, or the KISS principle (Keep It Simple, Stupid): Don’t reason beyond the data.

Which, while good advice, is easier said than done. Human beings are physically and spiritually wired to reason beyond the data, to make leaps of deduction that have little relationship with reality. When we are happy about this, we call it intuition and human creativity; when we are less pleased, generally after the fact, we call it foolishness.

It reminds me of an article I read a month ago, regarding an experiment with dog owners who were told that their dog had done something wrong. A great percentage of them thought their dog was wearing a guilty expression in regret for its crime – but, in fact, in half of the cases the dog had done nothing wrong at all. If anything, the dog’s expression was a response to rebuke, not a response to an emotion of guilt, but the dog owners had assumed that the dogs could feel guilt for their misdeeds.

We see zebras all the time in the realm of religion. It’s the tendency that encourages people to see their deity in a piece of toast, or a fluffy cloud, or the trunk of a tree. It’s the tendency that allows people to see patterns in their lives, in events both positive and negative. It is not always a pro-religion force, though; we also see zebras when we question Gd’s existence, finding proof of randomness or malice wherever we choose.

And, as so often happens, the gemara’s sages described this tendency perfectly. They said regarding Bilam (Makkot 10b), “בדרך שאדם רוצה לילך בה מוליכים אותו,” which translates roughly as, “A person will be brought along the path he wishes to follow.” It was true for Bilam, and it’s true for us as well.

How to attract people to your shul

Yesterday, someone came to my site by Googling “How to attract people to your shul.”

(For the record, they ended up here. As opposed to the Serbian person who Googled something far more obscene involving carnal relations and spitting, and ended up here.)

The results for that Google search are actually pretty interesting - they turn up discussions of technology, homosexuality, quality of davening, interfaith services, social action and more.

If you ask me - and you did by coming here - the first way to attract people to your shul is to start working on the following four questions:

1. Do you know whom you want to attract?
Are they local people? Local Jews of your beliefs, or local Jews who have other beliefs and are associated with other shuls, or local unaffiliated Jews, or local non-Jews?

Or are they people who live outside your area? Where do they live?

Are they young families with children? Families with teens? Older couples who have the time to serve on your boards and committees, and attend your programs? Retired people? People with discretionary income? What are your priorities?


2. Why aren’t these people at your shul already?
Is it because they think your beliefs are wrong? Is it because they have a better kiddush where they go? Is it because you have no jobs, or no affordable real estate? Is it because your community is on the Jewish equivalent of Pluto?

Is it because your chazan is a droning bore, or because you don’t have a chazan? Is it because the rabbi is a cold fish, or too warm and fuzzy? Is it because you have a rabbi at all? Is it because your rabbi doesn’t blog? Is it because they don’t believe in shuls? Is it because they want a stronger schoool?

Is it because they've heard horrible things about your shul? Is it because your shul is so successful that they feel more needed and welcome elsewhere?

Is it because their friends don’t go to your shul? Is it because they – and/or their friends - aren’t Jewish?


3. What are your strengths and weaknesses (not “challenges” – weaknesses, call them for what they are), for attracting these people to your shul?
Do you have a database of all of your members, broken down by age and children and year they moved in and education and interests and all sorts of other useful pieces of information? If not, stop everything and create that database. Even if it doesn’t help you attract a single new member, it will help you avoid losing the ones you have.

If you already have a database, can you determine your strengths? Do you have young couples, who might know other young couples who might be interested in moving in? Do you have people who work at key companies, and might be able to help you get information on jobs from HR? Do you have older families with children who live in key starter communities like Queens and New York’s Upper West Side, such that they might know people who are looking to move?

Do you have a youth program? A kiddush? A youth kiddush? A breakaway minyan? No breakaway minyan? A short, tall or in-between mechitzah? A beautiful building? A mother-baby nursing room? A thorough educational program for adults and youth? A great day school? A great high school? Playgrounds and parks and attractions?


4. Now that you have identified strengths and weaknesses, what can you do about them?
Can you fund a restaurant? Can you expand the eruv? Can you create a resource to list available jobs? Can you create a Youth program? Can you fire the chazan? Can you hire a chazan? Can you improve your school? Can you make your community warmer, larger, smarter, frummer, younger? Can you advertise your warmer, larger, smarter, frummer, younger community in an eye-catching, heart-catching way?

My biggest gripe: Communities that put together cash incentives to convince people to move in, without working on the problems that are keeping people away. To quote Ms. Mayefsky, z”l, that’s like putting a band-aid on a fracture.


Those are four questions, of many. Asking and answering them doesn’t guarantee any growth; I have done these exercises in Allentown, but didn't get all of the progress I wanted.

But Googling can only provide more questions, not more answers. The answers are all at home.

The Job of a Hospital Chaplain

I fell into hospital chaplaincy quite by accident; it’s not something I ever wanted to do, as a dedicated profession.

My fall took place during my first or second year in the rabbinate. A retired rabbi living in the area volunteered to visit Jewish patients at the local Veterans’ Hospital, but he was going south for the winter, and he asked me to fill in for him.

I learned a lot in this role, because it involved a lot of visiting people I had never met (and who could barely hear me – a lot of them were WWII and Korean War vets), and because it involved the first serious ecumenical work I had ever done.

I learned then, and this idea has been reinforced in the years since, that a hospital chaplain plays many roles, including:

• Officiant – Even though we don’t have last rites (separate from viduy), people consider tehillim a ritual, and benefit from actually seeing the rabbi recite it… even if they personally do not ‘believe in’ prayer.

• Case manager – Patients who don’t have relatives to oversee their cases are often given sub-par care. It’s harsh to say that, but it’s true. A chaplain can ask questions, and even by his presence demonstrate that someone is watching.

• Hope manager – For an aged man or woman who has neither children nor siblings nor friends ambulatory enough to visit, the chaplain represents someone who is interested in his well-being.

• Host for visiting relatives, orienting them to the hospital facility and, as needed, to the community at large.

• Comedian – Well, I had a captive audience. And I didn’t say I was any good at it.

One role I played only rarely was Spiritual Advisor.

I have mentioned elsewhere that the chaplains at that VA felt they were not respected, that the doctors saw them as insignificant and even out-of-place in the hospital. One countermeasure they implemented was a chart (to be stored with the medical chart!) listing dates and times of visits, and key spiritual milestones and benchmarks. Is the patient comfortable with his projected outcome? Is the patient angry, or calm? Have you discussed spiritual issues, life after death, etc?

For me, the idea of imposing this Spiritual Advisor role upon the patient, and especially benchmarking it, seemed foolish then, and it still seems foolish to me today. Perhaps this is different in other religions, but I never saw my visiting-rabbi role as including spiritual exploration. In part that’s because those patients could barely hear me, and were often unconscious. And in part it’s because they were largely people who had not seen fit to study religion or seek out a rabbi beforehand, and it seemed awkward to introduce it for them now. If they sought to discuss religion, I was ready, but I certainly was not going to position myself as Spiritual Advisor, come to investigate their Judaism.

On the other hand, perhaps I was and am too timid. Maybe those patients were just waiting for
me to ask them to put on tefillin. Who can know?

In any case, I never went back to it; I am happy to visit anyone and everyone, but not as an official chaplain.

Changed by a decade of Parenting

[This week’s Haveil Havalim is here!]

Our oldest turned 10 this past Thursday, the 17th of Tammuz, and the milestone set me to thinking about what a decade of fatherhood has tried to teach me.

The following will be old-hat to parents who are ahead of me on the chronological curve, as well as to many who simply figured things out long before I did, but it’s a short list of ways that parenting can mature us:

Parenting forces total responsibility.
This is beyond being reliable; I’m talking about something greater here. I’m talking about changing your life around in order to fill a responsibility. I’m talking about taking full responsibility for others’ actions and for the events of their lives, the buck stopping here.

If your six-year-old stuffs a ball down the bathtub drain and the plumber charges you $70 to get it out, you can't take it out of his allowance. If your two-year-old ruins something, there is no recourse. It's all on your head.


Parenting forces flexibility.
I can honestly say that I am more flexible now, by several orders of magnitude, than I was ten years ago. I don’t get as upset about the foiling of plans, or about not knowing what’s happening until the last minute; it’s a natural part of life with children.

I learned this especially in shul, regarding davening. When my rebbitzen was expecting our second, and the first was still under 2 years old, I brought him to shul on many occasions. As a rule, I ended up standing outside and doing the bare minimum of davening. I wasn't used to that, but he taught me.

I’m not sure people who share my life think I’m that flexible, but I feel the difference between what was and what is.


Parenting tries to teach us that we don’t need to stand out.
Anyone who survives a dozen years in the rabbinate must harbor an element that appreciates the spotlight (even if you’re nervous about being center-stage), but being a parent often means turning the spotlight to your child.

Having your child perform on stage or play a game or write a story is a great way to learn to stay in the background and keep your ideas to yourself. Balancing being visible enough to be a role model, while not so visible as to be intimidating, is real work.


Parenting makes us feel ignorant, which is not the same thing as being able to admit ignorance to others.

When I say, ‘feeling ignorant,’ I mean being willing to hear and embrace an entirely foreign point of view, recognizing that we know nothing. Trying to raise a child and recognizing you know nothing at all about how to do it was a good learning experience.

Telling a laughing pediatrician that you don't know how to get medicine into your stubborn child ("There are two of you and one of him, and you're bigger than him!"), or studying an off-colored diaper and wondering whether the weird shade of green means anything, is a good way to realize just how much you don't know.

The above is just a short list; much more could be said.

I wouldn’t say I’ve absorbed any of the above ideals 100%, but I’m definitely a world different now from the way I was in the Labor and Delivery room in 1999. I cringe to think about the person I once was… and I can’t wait to see what I will become in the next ten years, Gd-willing…

A Mandate for Environmentalism in Israel (Derashah Pinchas 5769)

During the past month, buried beneath headlines on Iran’s vote and then Michael Jackson’s death, environmentalists have taken a giant step forward. Last week the US House of Representatives resolved to cut US emissions, and now the G8 leaders, meeting in Italy, have moved to do likewise; they’re talking about cutting emissions by 80% in the coming decades.

But I would wager that most of us haven’t been following this at all – because the world’s general attention has been focussed elsewhere, and because much of the Jewish community, and particularly the observant Jewish community, tends to ignore environmental issues.


This isn’t true of the entire observant Jewish community, of course; organizations like Canfei Nesharim have done some great work, both in spurring activism and in explaining the Torah foundation for it. But nonetheless, many observant Jews see environmentalism as someone else’s cause, and for a variety of reasons.

• One pragmatic reason environmentalism is not a popular topic is that its proponents are often the same people who malign Israel constantly, while those who challenge it are also strong supporters of Israel and Jewish causes;

• A second reason, also practical, is that we have other, more personally pressing priorities, like Israel, like Jewish continuity and survival, like Jewish education. The rest of the world isn’t doing anything for us on those parochial issues, so we invest our energy in solving those problems and leave the bigger picture to the rest of the world.

• A third reason environmentalism has trouble in our community is that many of its leaders take tendentious scientific positions, relying on research that has not been proven and that has even been disproven, and we Jews are nothing if not a skeptical nation;


And then there’s a fourth, deeper, reason, which is a matter of philosophy.

The gemara records a debate between Rabban Shimon bar Yochai and Rabbi Yishmael:
• The former argues that a Jew is obligated to spend all of his time in Torah study; as far as earning a living, leave that to Gd, it will all be handled for us.
• Rabbi Yishmael, on the other hand, says that we are supposed to take action, working the fields, holding jobs, before using the rest of our time for Torah.

The gemara does not pasken this shailah; no winner is declared in this perennial debate. But some of us seem to feel that although we do follow Rabbi Yishmael when it comes to earning a living, we should follow Rabban Shimon bar Yochai when it comes to the environment, and rely on Gd to take care of it.

To cite the famous joke in which a prospective son-in-law tells his prospective father-in-law, “Gd will provide,” we tend to play the role of the son-in-law, leaving the fate of the planet in the hands of a benevolent Gd.


In truth, that philosophical idea of non-intervention is consistent with the past three-and-a-half chumashim:

• In Bereishit, Gd did it all personally, creating the world and engineering miracles to send the Jewish people to Egypt.
• In Shemot, Gd intervened to rescue the Jews from Egypt, sending makkot, splitting the sea, and so on.
• In Vayyikra we learned about tzaraat, a miraculous punishment for people who commit evil, and we heard the blessings and curses promising Divine action for and against our nation, depending upon our merit.
• And in the first half of the book of Bamidbar we saw Divine miracles produce water and quail and punish the meraglim and Korach.

For those initial books of the Torah, our responsibility was to fulfill our mitzvot, and Gd would handle the big picture.

But in our parshah, this morning, the charge changed. This morning we were told לאלה תחלק הארץ, this people is going to have a land, and once we became home-owners in Canaan, our responsibilities were forever altered.


Even Rabban Shimon Bar Yochai must agree that we are responsible to take care of that land. This is the mitzvah known as יישוב הארץ, settling the land, and the responsibilities it places upon our shoulders begin in biblical law and continue in rabbinic legislation and the guidance of our sages:

• לאלה תחלק הארץ - Next week the Torah will inform us of the way to build cities in Israel; among other instructions, we will be required to leave spacious parkland around those cities;

• לאלה תחלק הארץ - The gemara notes that numerous rabbinic laws protecting cities, homes and land in Israel.

Many of our mitzvot, biblical and rabbinic, are geared toward ensuring the on-going quality of our land; the Torah and the sages were concerned with the way we would treat our home, to ensure that we would be environmentalists in Israel.


Personally, I consider myself a global environmentalist; I believe that we are responsible not to destroy this world we have been given, not to waste Divine gifts, and not to harm the property of others, but to practice a modern version of Adam and Chavah’s לעבדה ולשמרה to work the land and to preserve it.

But even for those who are turned off by the anti-Israel sentiment of so many in the eco-movement, even for those who serve the many causes which already consume our community’s small resources, even for those who are troubled by the questionable scientific assertions as well as the partisan politics behind them, all of us must agree that the charge in this morning’s parshah, לאלה תחלק הארץ, This nation will have a land, charges us with a responsibility to protect and develop the land of Israel.

For some this happens through aliyah. For others this happens through organizations like JNF, planting a tree or donating for the construction of a reservoir. But for all of us it must happen – יישוב הארץ is our mitzvah.


After HaShem told Moshe about the distribution of Canaan, the daughters of Tzelafchad protested that they wanted a share, that their father’s land should not be absorbed by the rest of the tribe but should remain with them. Their argument won the day.

The gemara says that although Gd was already planning to include the law of a daughter’s inheritance in the Torah anyway, they merited to have it recorded in their name, as “the law of the daughters of Tzelafchad,” because they were the ones who came forth to plead for a share in Israel. There likely were other daughters who did not have brothers – but the daughters of Tzelafchad stepped forward because of their love for Israel, and so their name endures forever.

Gd-willing, we will also display our love for the land of Israel – and our names will be likewise preserved.

-
Notes:
1. Yes, I know that there is a machloket on applying Yishuv ha'Aretz as a mitzvah today. For a good start on sources regarding this mitzvah, go here.

2. Bnot Tzelafchad - See Bava Batra 119a on their merit.

3. The talmudic advice on rotating fields is also pragmatic, for the sake of the farmer, but it was the quickest example to hand. There are many more, just as there are many more mitzvot which the rishonim describe as being geared toward preserving the land.

New clothes and haircuts for the Three Weeks?

[See the bottom of this post for explanations of the 17th of Tammuz and the Three Weeks of mourning.]

Today’s fast of the 17th of Tammuz, and the whole start of the Three Weeks of mourning, came with an odd feeling this year.

At minyan last night I looked around and saw all the fresh haircuts and trimmed beards, and couldn’t help but think it looked like Rosh HaShanah, or Pesach.

The feeling was amplified by my own pre-Three Weeks shopping spree. Since the traditional practice of Ashkenazi Jews is that we don’t buy new clothing during the Three Weeks, and since our family is moving, Gd-willing, soon after this mourning period ends, I’ve purchased new shoes, slacks and ties recently. Although I’ve been wearing them for the past several days, a definite newness remains.

Fresh haircut, clean-cut beard, new clothes… yes, it feels much more like Yom Tov than a fast day mourning the destruction of the Beit haMikdash.

But I suppose I could look at it this way: We’re all set for the arrival of mashiach!

-


The fast day of the 17th of Tammuz, observed Thursday July 9 this year, commemorates five tragedies:

1. Moses descended from meeting Gd and receiving the Torah on Mount Sinai, saw the Jews celebrating with the Golden Calf, and broke the two tablets Gd had given him.

2. The daily Tamid offering, which had been brought regularly in the Jerusalem Beit haMikdash [Temple] from the time the Jews built the Mishkan for over one thousand years, was halted during the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem before the Beit haMikdash was destroyed.

3. The Romans invaded Jerusalem, prior to destroying the second Beit haMikdash. (The Babylonians invaded Jerusalem to destroy the first Temple on the 9th of Tammuz.)

4. A Greek or Roman official named Apostimos held a public burning of the Torah.

5. Idols were set up in the Temple itself; it is not clear what year this happened.

The 17th of Tammuz begins a three-week Jewish national period of mourning for the destruction of the two Temples in Jerusalem, as well as numerous other nation-wide tragedies, such as the Chmielnitzki massacres, the Crusades, and the Holocaust. This period culminates with the fast of Tisha b'Av, the ninth of Av.

CNN presents three reasons to make Aliyah

In case you needed more reasons to pack up and move to Israel, CNN provides three new reasons to apply to Nefesh b’Nefesh:

1. The Republican party has officially gone off the deep end
Yes, it’s true. I don’t know whether this is...
...the result of a level of intellectual dysfunction that comes from an endless loop of Limbaugh,
or
...the product of a breed of cognitive dissonance that forces Republicans to see no wrong in Sarah of the North,
or
...the effect of so many US governors spontaneously combusting in the past few years that Sarah Palin doesn't seem all that unusual...

...but can anyone explain to me why, “More than seven in 10 Republicans said they would be likely to vote for Palin for the presidency?”


2. Homeland Insecurity
Why do these reports not surprise us?

Plainclothes investigators sent to test security at federal buildings in four U.S. cities were successful in smuggling bomb components through guard posts at all 10 of the sites they visited, according to a government report.
The investigators then assembled the bombs in restrooms and freely entered numerous government offices while carrying the devices in briefcases, the report said.
The buildings contained offices of several federal lawmakers as well as agencies within the departments of State, Justice and Homeland Security, which is responsible for safeguarding federal office buildings.

I mean, really. 10 out of 10? Couldn’t you even make it look difficult?

3. And then the third reason to make aliyah: Iran is no longer a threat to Israel
No, not because the US has given a green light, or even a blinking yellow light, to Israel to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities.
And not because the Iranian government has been exposed to the world for the unpopular dictatorship it is.
Rather, it's because Iran, it turns out, is actually a benign, free society, functioning at the very height of democracy:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose re-election last month led to massive protests, on Tuesday called the balloting "the most free election anywhere in the world."
"It was a great event," he said in a nationally televised address.

You heard it from the man himself.